Blarney Bash fundraiser to benefit St. Patrick Catholic School

A major fundraiser for St. Patrick Catholic School centered around the feast day of one of Ireland’s patron saints?

That got “green-lighted,” said the school’s principal, Sarah Stanley.

“We kind of wanted to tie (the fundraiser and St. Patrick’s Day) together,” Stanley said.

The inaugural Blarney Bash, which will be held Friday at the LRS Hangar at Abraham Lincoln Capitol Airport, also is an opportunity to showcase some of the students’ successes and talents, said Stanley. Part of the program will feature students doing Irish dance, a video montage and student artwork.

While finances are, Stanley said, “always a struggle” for the east-side school, founded in 1910, enrollment is holding steady at 59 students in grades kindergarten through fifth. Several more families, she noted, have inquired about sending children to St. Patrick next fall.

Two years ago, St. Patrick added a year-round prekindergarten program, and this year added a second, fully staffed classroom.

St. Patrick is a “mission school,” and isn’t attached to a Catholic parish like it once was with St. Patrick Church. That church and another east-side church, Sacred Heart, formed St. Katharine Drexel Parish. St. Patrick School has a board of directors, though the Springfield Diocese does provide some financial support.

The school’s $925 annual tuition is about one-third the cost of other Catholic schools in the city, making it “an affordable opportunity,” Stanley said.

Most of the students reside in the neighborhoods around the school at 1800 South Grand Ave. E., though some come from other parts of the city.

Stanley, who taught at St. Patrick for two years before becoming its principal in 2013, acknowledged that while most of the students enrolled in the school are not Catholic, “I know a lot of families of students attend church. Maybe not a Catholic church, but they do attend.

“We look at ourselves as an alternative in providing faith-based education.”

A key “buy-in,” Stanley said, are the students’ parents and guardians, but the school often has looked to the greater Springfield community for help. A community member donated $200,000 when enrollment dipped a couple of years ago and administrators had thoughts of shuttering the school. That gift, along with many other contributions, have helped with St. Patrick’s day-to-day costs.